Karma’s power evident in the outdoors

Karma in the outdoors: Chronicle outdoors writer Tom Stienstra stopped his day to tow a disabled boat 8 miles to a boat ramp at Shasta Lake in Northern California

Karma in the outdoors: Chronicle outdoors writer Tom Stienstra...

At first sight, you could tell they were in trouble.

It was a small aluminum boat, about a 12-footer, Friday afternoon at Shasta Lake. The two adults, likely dad and son, were trying to paddle on each side to propel the boat forward. A small outboard engine wouldn’t start. A small child, about 4, appeared entertained by the affair.

The nearest boat ramp was 8 miles away. Without a word, I powered down our boat. My wife, Denese, stood to see if the crew was OK. My son, Jeremy, grabbed a bow rope to convert for a tow.

Of course, we were going to tow them in. Over the years, we’ve towed a lot of boats that were marooned with engine problems.

Your karma, good and bad, you see, is the goddess of the outdoors.

Karma is not a quid-pro-quo type of a deal, where based on your ethics, you get paid back — or made to pay — right off the bat. It often appears later in a form far different than the original encounter.

Over the years, in winter in the mountains, we’ve come across more than 20 vehicles, usually small SUVs or Subarus, that spun out on ice and rammed into snow drifts. I keep two tow straps in my rig, a four-wheel drive that weighs 7,000 pounds, and I can pop the cars out of the snowbanks in less than a minute. It’s the right thing to do.

Then, last fall, while on vacation on the Oregon coast, I was riding a new road bike up the Elk River Canyon. I hit a rut, and instantly, the back tire went flat. Just as I was getting out my repair kit, three cyclists — the only people we saw on the road in 25 miles — arrived from the other direction. One of them smiled, said he was a bike mechanic, loves to fix everything, and in a minute or two, had my tube changed out.

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On the other hand, I remember the time I bragged about fishing, and then, with everybody hooking up all around me, got zilched. The only time I ever had trouble making a campfire was after I’d bragged they called me “One-Match Stienstra.”

In this small world, it’s likely you, too, had such encounters, both good and bad. That’s how karma works in the outdoors.